


house

by tomatoes



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Caretaking, Character Study, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, idk i want them all to be happy, if canon was getting hit by a bus, mild homophobia, the canon this was written in is getting run over by a plastic barbie convertible
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2020-12-27 16:23:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21121742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomatoes/pseuds/tomatoes
Summary: Martin can take care of himself.





	house

**Author's Note:**

> [public pool, miller moon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VAEHjwDmPQ)

Martin Blackwood was a caretaker. It was in his nature—since eight years old, since his mother had found it harder and harder to stay standing for long amounts of time. Since the last time he ever saw his dad. Since the first night he had to help her up the stairs to her bedroom, small arms wrapped around her, pushing up to support her weight. It was, in some ways, a good thing, he would rationalize to his therapists later in life. He had grown up independent (too quickly) and was able to take care of himself from a young age (self reliant to a fault). He was stronger for this.

(In some ways, he was also so, so much weaker.)

—

He'd started journaling after being given an assignment in primary. Each day they had to fill a page with words—about their day, about their feelings, about whatever, really. Some days he would do nothing but pace around the shell his house had become, downstairs living space abandoned as his mother watched daytime TV in bed upstairs. He'd cradle a composition notebook in the palm of his left hand and a pen in the right, writing a sentence whenever something came to mind, walking circles around the first floor.

The first time he ever heard the word "neglect" was when he was nine years old. He remembers his teacher reading over his journal for the day, and being asked to meet after school in the head office, and sitting in the green leather chairs and his mother coming in and feeling very scared but not knowing why.

Last night, he had written about being frustrated that there were no bandages in the house—he'd hurt himself playing outside, and had to hold a paper towel to his leg to stop the blood from running down it. When he'd knocked on the door to his mother's bedroom, asking her to help him look for the bin where they kept the Band-Aids, she'd snapped _deal with it yourself. _He had washed the cut in the bathroom sink and fashioned a bandage out of napkins and packaging tape, and thought it was rather clever, so he'd put it in his journal.

His teacher had not been happy about this, and for an hour Martin sat and heard words like "interpersonal" and "failure to protect" and he felt his face grow hot with embarrassment. He looked up at his mother. She looked so tired, sitting next to him in those awful chairs, the bright overhead lights of the head office nearly blinding against the darkness that was rapidly falling outside.

"I made it up," he said suddenly, and the adults stopped talking. "S—sorry, sometimes I like to, um, ex-agg-er-ate?" He looked to his English teacher, who nodded slowly. "I like to exaggerate in my journal entries. M—make them seem more interesting."

It was a lie. A poor one, if he was being honest, but it seemed to work. His teacher asked if he was telling the truth and he lied again, and he kept lying until they decided to drop the matter. His mother said nothing as they apologized for bothering her. She rose slowly from her chair, nodded, and led Martin outside.

From then on, he'd kept two separate journals: one filled with unassuming basic details about his day, that he would turn in for grades, and one that he filled with his truths, the things he learned he could not tell anyone else. _No one can find these_, he remembered telling himself, alone in the quiet of his bedroom. _No one can know. _The journal assignment ended and he stopped filling pages with half-truths, but the other journals remained, composition notebooks embalming Martin Blackwood, as he was, as he believed he always would be. They stayed in a stack in the corner of his closet, a secret to the whole world but him.

He and his mother left the school building late that night. The crisp January air bit at his face as they walked across the parking lot to the car, the only sign of life the occasional streak of headlights from the road. The drive back to the house was silent, and Martin watched the moon out of the backseat window, imagining it was watching back.

—

He still isn't entirely sure how he ended up at the party. He's sure he was walking home from his Friday after-school shift, and he's sure he heard someone shout his name from the window of Bryce Anderson's house. He's sure he looked up and saw a girl from his Precalc class waving for him to come in. It's the _why _that confuses him, he supposed, as someone handed him a drink and he made casual conversation with the few people here who he actually knew. Class acquaintances, the girl he knew from poetry club. Bryce came over and clapped him on the shoulder.

"Hey! I heard someone yelling your name out the window. Didn't know you worked at Tesco," he laughed, gesturing to his work shirt.

Martin was on strongly neutral terms with most of his classmates. Bryce he considered somewhat of a friend simply because they usually caught each other while walking to school. He's close with some people he knows from extracurriculars. He floats on the outside of multiple groups, splits handles of jack in basements with the swim team, goes on hastily-planned late-night fast food runs with his peers who live in his neighborhood, shares blunts in the woods with the art kids whenever one of them decides to shell out what is surely too much for a bag. But—he doesn't have any solid _friends_. He supposes this invite was another instance of him being caught in one of these group's gravitational pull—he knows just enough people to be invited, but not enough to be fully in.

Someone pulled out a pack of cards and suddenly he was being tugged to the floor, having his drink topped off and watching them set up a game. "Does everyone know how to play Kings?"

They played for a few rounds, Martin triple checking that he wouldn't break the circle every time he pulled a card. He felt the drunkenness set in quickly—he wasn't a lightweight, but he certainly couldn't handle nearly as much as most people expected him to be able to, and they had somehow managed two Aces already and the girl next to him was a monster.

"Jack."

Nobody had pulled a Jack yet, he realizes blearily. Maybe the deck was missing a few cards. He looks up to who pulled it—Patrick, who he knew only as "rugby kid", was holding the face side of the card up to the group, as if to prove he'd pulled that one.

"Truth or Dare!" someone shouts, and Patrick smiles lazily. He turns to the girl to his right (Gracie, he thinks? She's in his French class) and raises his eyebrows.

"So, you ask me, right?" She nods, and Patrick thinks for a moment. "Dare."

She smiles. "Spin the beer can and kiss whoever it lands on."

"Spin the bottle, alright." He puts his cup on the table behind him and reaches forwards, giving the can as much of a spin as he can on the carpeted floor and—

His stomach drops. _No. No, no, no, no._

"Oh, shit. Well then." He can hardly hear Patrick through the ringing in his ears. Martin looks up from where the tab on the can is facing directly at him and catches his gaze. He remembers, coldly, that he's never kissed anyone. He has no idea what he's even supposed to be doing right now, as Patrick leans across the circle and puts a hand on his shoulder. He cranes his neck up just a bit and closes the gap.

He'd long ago grown out of the fantasy of having a magical first kiss, and slightly less long ago grown out of the idea that he'd have one even remotely nice or memorable. This is nothing but the press of two sets of pursed lips together, and he's desperately trying to not look like he's enjoying it—and he _isn't_ but he also can't _look _like he is, at all, and maybe he's lingered a bit too long, and he jerks his head back suddenly when he realizes Patrick's hand has left his shoulder. He hears the other people around him whistling and cheering, but it all sounds distant, like he's hearing them through a wall. Patrick furrows his brow at him slightly and sits back down in his spot in the circle, setting the beer upright again as he goes.

"You into that, Blackwood?" He says it as a jab, but as the rest of the circle laughs his eyes are burning into Martin's, smile turned up just enough to feel cruel. _He knows. He knows. He can see right through you._

"Uh—I—" His head was buzzing. He felt his face growing hot, panic rising in his throat. The rest of the group had moved on from the joke, Patrick already giving a truth question to the guy on his left, but Martin still felt unable to move.

He extracted himself from the circle successfully, using the uproar from the guy's answer as a distraction, and went into the kitchen to calm down. The only other people in here with him were having a conversation around the small dining table, not paying much attention to him. He still pretended to be texting someone.

"Martin?" His head jerked up. In front of him was the girl who had been sitting to his left in the circle, a worried expression on her face. "You're Martin Blackwood, right? I don't think we have any classes together, but—"

"Yeah—yeah, that's me. You're...Olivia Merchant?"

"Merchand, yeah—it's just a D instead of a T. Basically the same sound," she joked, then focused back on him. "I just—are you okay? You kinda looked panicked for a few seconds and then you just ran out of there, and I—"

"Oh! Oh, I'm fine, I just—s-someone was texting me, and I—" he gestured with his phone uselessly. _Get ahold of yourself._ "I swear I'm really fine, I'll be right back in, just getting some air—texting—you know—"

He was acutely aware of his shaking hands, of the cold sweat starting to gather at the back of his neck. His eyes darted around, unable to meet Olivia's. He felt suddenly, painfully _visible_, like he had been ripped open, caught red-handed in a lie he'd worked so hard to manufacture. There was nowhere to run to as she fixed her unrelenting gaze on him, her plastic cup abandoned on the kitchen counter. "Martin..." she said in a low voice, quiet in a way that was probably meant to be comforting but read to him as dangerous. She was speaking slowly, carefully, like approaching a bird that had gotten into a house, and she was trying to catch it, pin down its wings so it stopped fluttering uselessly against the window, a false escape. "Are you—are you actually—"

Something snapped. Everything dropped away, suddenly, and his brain was perfectly calm. "Excuse me," he said mildly, and turned around to vomit into the sink. He didn't lift his head once he was done, just stayed there, neck craned and hands braced on either side of the ceramic. Distantly, he could hear people asking if he was alright, if he needed water or wanted to sit down, but he could hardly process anything over the rushing in his ears. He remembers straightening up, slowly, taking one of the plastic water bottles offered to him, and walking out of the screen door that led into the backyard. He remembers knowing, somehow, that nobody would follow him.

The walk back to his house from the party wasn't too far. He was glad he hadn't driven that morning, as he was in no state to be behind the wheel right now. He spit into the grass by the side of the road, then took a mouthful of the water and swished it through his teeth, spitting it out again, trying to get the acidic taste out of his mouth. He felt lightheaded, so he sat down on the curb.

Blue faded in and out from the edges of his vision, and he realized his breath was coming in short gasps. His heart thumped loud and fast, and he remembered catching a rabbit when he was a child, feeling the manic pulse beneath its soft fur.

He wondered if she'd tell anyone. If she'd tell everyone. If everyone at school already knew that Martin Blackwood got drunk at Bryce Anderson's house, kissed a boy, threw up in the sink and then left. If everyone at school already knew he was gay. If everything was for nothing, if the years of constructing a false self could be so easily crushed by one stupid drinking game. Because he wasn't careful, got too drunk to keep his mouth shut—

He wanted to cry. It would be cathartic to cry, right now, to release all the emotion building in the pit of his stomach. His body didn't let him. His eyes remained dry and he was left with nothing but a cold, sinking feeling of dread.

The sky was a deep greyish-blue, and the clock on his phone told him it was around one in the morning. He looked down the road.

What if he ran right now? What if he walked to the train station, bought a ticket with the bills in his wallet, took the line as far as it could go, vanished forever over the horizon? What if he wasn't remembered, not by anybody, free of all the panic and pain. He closed his eyes and tilted his face up to the stars.

He sat like that, for a while, on the street in front of dark windows, listening to the wind move between the trees. He sat like that until he felt the panic settle in his body, leak through the soles of his feet into the pavement. He stood up and walked back to his house.

—

The door to the break room pushed open, and Martin looked up instinctively. Emily walked in—she just got here two hours ago—so this must be her fifteen, Martin calculates. "I broke up with my boyfriend," she sighs.

James laughs shortly from where he's sitting across from Martin. "About time. He'd been cheating on you for what, two months?" He continued picking at the bag of crisps he and Martin decided to share from the vending machine.

"I'm not taking life advice from someone who thinks that qualifies as lunch," James rolls his eyes and mutters _ha-ha_, but he looks up at her with warmth in his gaze, and for a brief second something stirs between them. They seem to remember Martin is there, though, so Emily looks away and sits down at the end of the table between them. "So how long are you two here today?"

"They're going easy on me today. I'm out at six," Martin scoffs, taking another crisp and glancing up at the clock, checking how much time was left on his own break. He _really _doesn't want to go back out to the register.

James groans melodramatically. "I'm off at nine. I think Anita called out sick today, though, so I might have to stay until closing if we're short."

Emily smiles. "Well, I'm here until closing. I can pop over and help out if I finish up in produce early, maybe bag for you?"

"Emily, you're a saint. And my time's up, I'll see you guys." James pushed the half-finished bag towards Martin and left the break room. Emily was still smiling to herself, picking at the edge of the table where the laminate was peeling off.

"Do you like him?" The words felt almost alien as they left his mouth, like it wasn't actually Martin who had said them. He flushed a deep red immediately. "S—sorry, that's kind of an invasive question, uh—"

"It's fine," Emily laughed. She drummed her fingertips on the table, looking out the window thoughtfully. "I think I do. It would be—he's nice. And cute. It's just...we're both going to university, and if we kept it going it would be long distance, so...I don't know." A deep sigh. "Maybe we could try."

Martin knew he wasn't normal, was less cookie-cutter than some of his peers. He was the leftover dough, fragments that once skirted on the outline of something else, all smashed together and left to bake unevenly in the corner of the pan. A laundry list of names he'd heard before he'd learned to be quiet, slurs before he'd learned to be careful. Before he'd taught himself to lie, verbally and physically. Molding himself into something passable. Less so something to be loved or cared for in any deep way, but something that could be hired when someone else quit, something hateful eyes glossed over on the street.

"Give it a shot," he responded. He had seven minutes left of his break. "What's the worst that could happen?"

Emily's leg was bouncing. "I just don't want to ruin anything. Have you ever liked someone and it's like—it's different, from other times. Like—there's something..._more_ there?"

"I've only kissed someone once and it was spin the bottle." Martin says, and he leaves out the rest of it. Half-truths. He worries for a moment she'll see right through him, shatter his façade and know all his innermost secrets, turn them against him like a hundred little blades. But Emily doesn't see anything, doesn't know anything, simply smiles kindly at him.

"Well, you're what—seventeen? You're a baby."

"You're only a year older than me!" He protests, and she waves him off.

"Just—don't worry about that kind of stuff. Doesn't matter how many times you've kissed someone, or had sex, or hooked up, or whatever. Plus, I'm sure there's a ton of girls who like you." Martin feels the familiar sensation of tightness in his throat, so he doesn't say anything. "Well—I'm sure you've heard all that before. But it's true. If you just let life take its course, you'll find someone." She seems to think for a bit, pulling in on herself and going quiet. "Always when you least expect it."

"You know, I won't tolerate just sitting here and letting you project onto me," Emily's eyebrows raise in a mock-indignant expression, and then she giggles. Martin continues, "Ask him out. That's the only advice I can give you right now, because I need to follow James and go back to dealing with customers. You can finish those, by the way."

She pulls what remains of the crisps towards her and waves him off. "Thank you. I know I said I wouldn't take life advice from anyone who thinks this is lunch, but..."

Martin laughs at that. Later, when he clocked out, he'd wallow. He'd fill pages of his notebook with the torment of not being truly known by anyone. He'd construct daydreams of understanding, of gentle hands, write poetry of being open and receiving openness in return.

For now he scanned barcodes, and watched the hours of his youth tick by on the timeclock.

—

> 1st June 2008
> 
> I'm so tired of lying to people. I hate that at this point it's almost second nature, like a muscle overworked to an extremity. I make up entire false lives in cabs just because I can. I probably could have been a great actor if I hadn't had to drop out to take care of mum. Not like I would have ever had the guts to get up on a stage anyway.
> 
> Maybe someday I'll be able to tell someone everything. Just lay it all out and not have to feel afraid about being judged, or hurt, or anything like that. I feel like I write about this all the time and nothing's ever going to happen that will change the situation. Maybe I'll fill up all my journals with this. Begging to ruled notebook paper for some kind of deliverance from my loneliness. God forbid I actually go out and make an effort to make friends, or something.
> 
> Not like I really have time to do any of that making friends or dating stuff. It's just work, sleep, take care of mum. I wish I'd had the opportunity to be normal.

—

"Are you still nervous?"

Martin looked up quizzically from where he'd placed the mug on the desk in front of him. He wasn't quite sure how to respond, so he managed to stumble through the only sentence his brain conjured for him. "I—uh—your name is Sasha?"

She laughed, and it was high and pretty and practiced in a way that implied it was also effortless. "Yes," she said, with an easy smile. "And you are Martin." She pulled the tea closer to her. "So, Martin, are you still nervous?"

"About what, exactly?" His voice kicked up a bit too high at the end, and he forced the embarrassment down to deal with later.

"About the new job? You've been nearly bouncing off the walls trying to help everyone out with every little thing and boil water for tea while you're at it." She took a sip from her mug and gave him a faux-suspicious look over the rim. "Looks to _me_ like someone is still having new-guy jitters."

"It—it's not that, really. It was when I first started, but—I guess I just like knowing everyone in here is...taken care of? I guess?" Martin exhaled. "I like helping." He decided, finally.

Sasha beamed at him. "Well, thank you, really. Y'know—it has been great having you around. Like, I don't know if you've noticed, but—" —she looked around exaggeratedly to check no one was listening, and Martin snorted— "—this job is kind of geared more towards boring, stuck-up academic types than anything. Tim and I were overjoyed when you walked in here and didn't immediately look like you'd lapse into a rant if one of us, like, laughed or something." She checked the time on her phone and sighed. "Alright, I've got to get back to work before I have to stay late to finish these. Before you go though—speaking of me and Tim, would you like to grab drinks with us tonight? We've been trying to get a bigger group together, but like I said, stuck-up academics."

Martin blinked. He'd never been out to drinks with coworkers. This was different. Everything about the Institute was so different. "I'd love to."

"Great! You're off at six, right? Just meet us at the side entrance." Sasha gave him one more quick smile before swiveling back around to her laptop, reopening one of her spreadsheets and typing away. 

Martin realized that was his cue to go back to work, so he hurried away from her desk and sits down at his own. Is this—are they friends?

He smiles, despite himself.

—

He'd wanted so badly to hate him.

It should have been easy, after the callous first meeting, after enduring months, years of the casual standoffishness that Jonathan Sims exuded from his very being. He was snappish with everyone—he was constantly butting heads with Tim, and while he seemed to appreciate Sasha's quick efficiency in her research, any attempts at friendliness from her were shot down by him immediately. And, of course, he utterly despised Martin. He supposed it was probably his own incompetence with the job, being unable to preform even the most basic tasks without making minor mistakes, scraping by on what he had learned by watching others. It got even worse when the three of them were appointed his "Archival Assistants". Each day Martin felt like he was skirting on the edge, like Jon was waiting for him to slip up and he could reveal to everyone that Martin was a fraud, and then he'd be sent to jail or blocked from job application websites or whatever happens to people who fake documents to get hired.

But that never happened. Martin just brought him tea with everyone else and tried not to let the way he scoffed at him when he messed up data entry hurt too much. And yes, he was pretty attractive, and very smart, and his voice was really nice, and despite everything Martin's heart latched onto a dream and refused to let go.

He lived like that, trying so hard to be a good assistant. To not "cause delays". And he returned to that man's apartment (stupid) and dropped his phone (stupid) and gotten himself trapped in his apartment for days, no electricity, no landline, scarce amounts of food, and a terrible husk of a woman crawling with worms trying to get him to open the door. He rationed peaches and read his books and wrote in his journals and breathed, in and out, staring into the drain of his sink and trying to ignore the knocking. His eyes felt like they were going to shake out of his skull.

He thought about Sasha, and Tim, and _Jon_, imagined them coming to get him, imagined Jon taking his hands and telling him everything would be alright. Imagined him drying the tears when they finally came, when the reality of the situation set in.

Instead, after thirteen days, he runs back to the Institute, and everything is exactly the same.

Except—

Jon leads him to the sealed room with the cot, and Martin sits down on it and all the exhaustion hits him at once. His eyes are burning, partially from sleep deprivation and partially from the incredibly embarrassing urge to cry. He needs to buy a new phone, and he'll need to go to the store for that because the old one had his SIM card in it, and what exactly was his service provider information, and how will he afford it, and Jesus Christ he'd hardly eaten anything but canned peaches and soup for two weeks and he was so tired and so, so _scared—_

"Martin—God, Martin, are you okay?" Jon's voice interrupts his racing thoughts and he looks up blearily. "You—you sounded like you were hyperventilating."

"I'm alright. Sorry," he says quietly, pressing the palms of his hands against his eyes.

The room is silent. Jon hovers awkwardly, and Martin looks at the floor between his feet. He takes his shoes off, twisting around to lie down. Jon sits on the floor, leaning his back up against the metal rod on the side of the cot.

"What are you—"

"I'll...I'll stay here. Until you fall asleep." There is a pause, and it seems neither of them know quite what to say. Jon continues. "You've been alone for two weeks, Martin. It's clearly taken a toll on you. I want to make sure you don't...have a panic attack, or something."

"Oh," Martin says, barely above a whisper. "Thank you."

Jon did stay beside the cot until he fell asleep, at least, finally drifting off with the vision of the other man's back in the small room. A small, foolish piece of Martin's heart hoped he'd stayed there longer.

—

The antiseptic smell of medical wards was becoming unpleasantly familiar to him. He was sure it had seeped into his clothes at this point, that no matter how many times he tried to wash it out it would linger with him, a man chased by the inevitability of hurt and pain and death. Sat forever in uncomfortable chairs next to hospital beds.

Jon's skin was dull. His vitals monitor showed no heartbeat, no respiration. His blood was frozen in his veins, and when Martin was brave enough to touch his hand it was as cold as the bed it rested on.

And yet his eyes were alive, flickering back and forth frantically beneath his eyelids like he was desperately looking for an escape from his own slumber. Perhaps he was, Martin mused. Trapped in his own brain. Within his own dreams. The doctors were baffled by the pulsing chaos of his brainwaves, he remembers, sitting in that emergency room with Melanie and Basira, freshly missing three—or perhaps two and a half. Their Archivist, balancing on the line between life and death, and there was nothing anyone could do.

He still missed Sasha, terribly. She had been the only one he had ever been truly close to, and they had pressed their backs together against the harshness of the other Institute employees. Neither of them were meant to be there, and they both knew it, deep down. He had been so glad, when she was transferred with him to be an Archival Assistant, and then—

He'd lost so many people. Tim had been rough in his last year, and Daisy had always sort of scared him. But they were all bound together under the suffering brought by their employment-slash-entrapment. Now they were dead, and Jon was in a coma, and Melanie was growing more and more vicious each day, and he has the dreadful sinking feeling that Basira had never really liked him in the first place.

He tries not to wallow. He's not a moody teenager anymore, and he can't go around moping when there's work to be done, fear to be stopped, or at least controlled. He works with Peter Lukas, when he comes to run the Institute. What else can he do?

In November, he gets the call about his mother.

Ms. Kamiński had been sick for a very, very long time. Martin could hardly remember a time when she hadn't been. He had always ached for her, wanting nothing more than to lift the pain of her illness off of her body. When he was younger he had believed that it would all just go away someday, if he cared for her the best he could, if he tried hard enough. A small, childish part of him never quite stopped.

He'd always found it hard to believe when people claimed they recalled perfectly what was happening when they received life changing, earth-shattering news like this. And yet, in that exact moment, he remembers the exact placement of the leftover Chinese takeaway boxes, the number of plates and utensils stacked in the sink, the low hum of the microwave as the food inside spun next to his head. He remembers exactly what it felt like, the drop in his stomach when he saw the saved name on his phone, the terror that gripped his entire body. They never called him. She never wanted to talk to him.

Once a minute through the conversation, the microwave beeps, reminding him his food is done. It's a brilliant timer, tells him it takes approximately fourteen minutes for the nursing home staff to outline his mother's cause of death (finally succumbing to the illness that had plagued half her life), her will (not much of anything on it—she'd sold their house, and they had never had any more money than what was needed to scrape by), what she wished to be done with her body (cremated and her ashes shipped back to Poland to her sister). At some point he had sat on the floor, back up against his kitchen cabinets, staring blankly at the laminate tiles. The microwave beeps again.

"We're very sorry, Mr. Blackwood."

He hangs up.

—

> 09/03/2003
> 
> I'm not going back into school tomorrow. I don't even know if there's a formal way to drop out but I figure if I just stop coming in they'll get what's going on. They could call mum, I guess, but she can't exactly make me go either. I hope she'll understand that I'm doing this for her. I'm going to tell Jamie that I can work full time now and see if she can switch my employment and give me more hours.
> 
> I'm scared. I don't want to do this. My grades aren't the best and I don't really know anyone there that well but I like learning. My English teacher told me to email her if I ever need anything. Maybe I can go back at some point? And just finish everything up. I don't know if they allow that, though. I hope everything turns out okay.

—

On his more optimistic days, he imagined Jon coming after him. He had, after all, gone after Daisy in the Buried. A suicide mission, and so shortly after awaking from that half-year coma, all for someone who had once wanted him dead—had planned to kill him herself. So he would, on occasion, fantasize about Jon stepping into the mist of the Lonely, taking his hands and pulling him back. He stomped out hopes like these quickly. Daisy was _useful_, quick and cunning, and even with her powers now dampened she would be able to defend them, if needed. She was a key member of the Archives team.

Martin was...

“Can’t even translate Latin,” he muttered to himself, closing a few tabs on his laptop. “Idiot.”

He hoped Peter hadn’t seen him crying.

—

He thinks of his mother. He breathes in five, breathes out six, and thinks of her cold stares, her shouting at him when he closed a door too loud. He thinks of him doing everything for two for his entire life. He thinks of it all being for nothing.

Not for nothing. He had loved her, and that was enough. He'd learned to carry this kind of burden, learned to dance with dead weight as a partner. Learned to waltz with hate and hurt. It was an instinct, even now, to care, to be gentle and kind with her even though she was gone. He wanted to be free. He wanted to scream that he hated her, that she had no right to do all that to him, that he deserved more. But he couldn't. He would either not let himself or did not truly believe any of it in the first place.

A tree had fallen in a forest, so many years ago, and people were there but they plugged their ears and closed their eyes, so the tree had been silent so as not to bother them. And now it was soft, rotting wood and mossy bark, hollowed out in the center so that small animals could take shelter from the rain. And that had been enough for the tree, to fill its own emptiness with the wellbeing of others. That had been enough.

—

He'd only seen the ocean a few times in his life. It had always been cold, and the power of the waves frightened him. He'd never been the strongest swimmer, even in placid lakes or public pools, and if he'd ever gone in he wasn't sure he'd be able to keep his head afloat.

The Lonely's ocean is calm in a way that is unnatural, the waves pulling in and out as though they were subdued. As though the moon had grown tired of the tides, and was now continuing the push and pull simply because there was nowhere else to go.

Peter had left him here. He was finally alone.

The fog felt like a thick layer on his skin. He was cold, and the sky was the muddy brownish-grey of promised nighttime storms, but he knew there would be no rain. This was a moment frozen in time, the only movement from him and the waves.

He closed his eyes.

"_Martin—_"

"Jon?" His voice somehow feels like he hasn't used it in days, like back when he was applying for jobs and wouldn't leave his flat, wouldn't speak to anyone. He feels nothing as the Archivist begs for him to come back. He's gotten very good at feeling nothing at all, he thinks. All a bit too late.

"I really loved you, you know?"

And then he is alone, again. As it should be.

—

> Martin Blackwood
> 
> English
> 
> Mrs. Sullivan
> 
> 19 February 1997
> 
> Today is kind of boring. I made eggs for breakfast and then finished up my homework early so theres nothing to do. I was having some trouble with the science work but I think I learned it. I wanted to ask mum but her door is closed so I can't go in there today. It is cold out but I might go outside and stand in the snow. I like when it is new and theres no foot prints yet. The winter is so quiet. Sometimes when I go into my yard and stand still and close my eyes I can pretend I am the only person in the whole world.

—

It's hard, to listen. The fog dampens everything, numbs every nerve in his body. He is responding to Jon, but it's all detached from him. Shaking off his pleas to hear him, to come back. The act of acknowledging another person feels like trying to run through water.

Jon touches his shoulder. The sensation is like touching his own jaw after he had his wisdom teeth removed, the knowledge that there is something there, some part of him that should feel, but nothing exists to him but a dull pressure.

"Martin, look at me. What do you see?"

It's a snap of something, like getting back on a bike after not riding one in years. It crashes over Martin like a wave, a real wave, powerful and strong enough to drown him. He feels the tears come. Feels the familiar warmth behind his eyes, the stinging feeling in his nose before it breaks and he's sobbing. Jon is here. Jon is _here_.

"I see you."

It's the best kiss he's ever had.

—

He cries quite a bit, once he's out of the Lonely. It feels like a dam has broken. All the emotions come back stronger in those weeks, but he'd always been a sort of melancholy person, so he guessed it made sense that sadness came back swinging. He tries to talk to lots of people, to go outside, to be seen and heard and noticed.

They all meet at Jon's, to talk about everything and discuss the next moves. They gather in the living room, though Jon hasn't been in his apartment enough since he got back to describe it as _lived in_. Georgie sat protectively close to Melanie on the scarcely-used couch, and Basira and Daisy perched across from them on the coffee table Jon had found on the street a block away and managed to drag all the way to the apartment. ("You know, we make enough for you to at least afford one from IKEA or something." "I don't have the time to be putting together cheap Swedish furniture, Martin.")

Martin hovered awkwardly by one of the couch armrests, two fingers resting on it, body rapidly growing warm with the embarrassment of feeling misplaced. It feels strange, having all of them here. He hardly knows any of them. He misses Tim and Sasha fiercely, their absence aching like a phantom limb.

Their attention flicks to Jon as he enters. The five of them talk, and Martin watches, not quite sure what to add to any of it. He fiddles with his shirt hem.

"Martin." It's Daisy. When he looks at her, there's a softness in her face, her voice, uncharacteristic but welcome. "How have you been feeling?"

"I'm—" He smiles, shakily. The emotions threaten to overwhelm him again, and he _really _doesn't want to start crying in front of everyone. Jon moves closer to him, puts his hand on the small of his back. An anchor. "I've been okay. A little—a little, uh." He stops there, not quite knowing what else to say.

Georgie and Basira are looking at him now, too, and Melanie has turned her head to hear better. "That's good," Daisy says, like she knows exactly what he means. "You'll be alright."

He'll be alright.

—

It feels strange to say they go on _dates_, such a pedestrian activity after nearly watching the world end, but they do. They get coffee and go on walks and cook dinner, and Martin makes a show out of telling off the onions Jon had been chopping when they made his eyes water. If anyone were to look from the outside in, they were normal. Met at work, hated each other at first, fell in love. Leave out the worms and the coma and the kidnappings and the flesh monsters and they were just two men in their early thirties nurturing a budding romantic relationship. Sure, an empty, foggy purgatory beach isn't the most typical place to drop the first "I love you," but nobody needed to know.

They're heading towards a station one night, going back to Jon's place, when Martin stops them by a canal. "Look—I love that. When you can see the moon in the water at night. I read—I read a book when I was a kid, about a kitten who thinks the reflection is milk and tries to drink it."

Jon laughs at that, and when Martin looks over his gaze is fixed on him, fond. "Why, because the water looks white? Wouldn't it just taste the water?"

"Okay, I might be remembering it wrong. I just—I like seeing the reflection."

Jon makes a sort of _hmm _sound and moves them to sit on a bench nearby. They watch the water, listening to the quiet noise of London at night around them.

"I've been thinking," Jon says, looking at the ground, "About what Peter said. About—about us not really knowing each other."

Martin makes a sad noise. "I know you. Or, I know enough, I think. Enough to love you. I always want to know you more, though."

Jon smiles at that. "I want to know you more, too. But—I just—" He sighs, deeply, and Martin understands. "I don't want to...rip it out of you."

"I know. I'm sorry," Martin says quietly. "Maybe just...ask? And try not to, uh, compel me, or anything."

Jon nods, and takes a deep breath. "Well...tell me about yourself. Who are you?"

"Uh, well. I'm thirty-two." Martin laughs. "You know that. I'm from Devon—Tiverton, specifically. I like writing, and, um." His brain screeches to a halt. "I don't know." he says, and he really doesn't.

"Take your time," Jon says.

Martin sighs. "No, it's—sometimes it feels like my whole life—everything I am is just made up. Like I'm just—just painted plywood propped up to look like something real, and I can't let anyone get too close or they'll notice I'm just—sort of—set dressing, or something." He sighs again, and it feels like the sadness is being pulled out of his lungs through his mouth. "Like, even now, I _trust _you, and I'm trying to be honest with you, but—but—I know I'm hiding something. I don't even know what it _is! _But I can—I can feel it. I've been lying instinctively for so long I'm not sure if I know how to do anything else. I don't know if anyone will ever get the full truth out of me."

There's a pause, and then Jon says "_Well_," and it's not funny, it's terrible, but Martin barks out a laugh anyway.

"I mean, I guess that would be one way. You could always just _make _me tell the truth."

Jon purses his lips and looks at the ground. "I don't want that, though. I want you to feel safe enough to be honest with me without any...supernatural bullshit forcing you to."

Martin wants that, too. He thinks it's all he ever wanted. He'd filled pages with that want before he had words for it, describing vague feelings of being wanted and known and cared for despite everything. Despite it all. He'd dragged his baggage all the way to Jon's front doorstep, and he had invited him inside to help him unpack. "Then ask me something. Without—without the supernatural bullshit. And I'll tell you the truth."

Jon thinks, for a minute. "First kiss?" Martin laughs, and Jon looks indignant. "What? Sorry I'm not the best twenty questions player."

"It's fine. That's...perfect." He feels no pull of compulsion, so he takes a deep breath. Better now than later. And he trusts Jon, so— "I was sixteen."

Jon nods, then seems to steel himself against some invisible force. "Tell me more?"

He doesn't feel any compulsion, so he keeps going. "Well, um. I was—I was at a party, and we were drinking, and like—playing Kings, right? And someone pulled Jack and dared a kid to spin the beer can—spin the bottle, basically. And um, it was—he landed on me, and then—well, it was—it was—" He sputters out. It feels like the words are fighting in his throat, desperate not to leave. He tries to keep his hands from shaking.

"You don't have to keep going."

"—bad. It was bad. That's—" he lets out a shuddering breath. For all the times he'd thought about that night, all the frustrated tears he'd shed, telling it all to someone was a different beast entirely. "That's all I'll say. Um. I've never told anyone that. It—it hurts, more. To say it out loud."

Jon is quiet. When he speaks, he sounds nervous. "Did I—compel you?"

"No! No, you—I just—trust you." He laughs wetly. "It felt—bad, but...good. Thank you."

Jon's hand comes to rest on his arm, warm and solid in the junction of his elbow. "I'm sorry that happened to you." It's the first time anyone's acknowledged it—it's the first time _Martin's _acknowledged it, for what it was. Jon's words feel like antiseptic on a wound, stinging and sharp but helping him heal.

He feels a few tears finally escape, run down his face and gather at his chin, hot and blurry. He manages a shaky smile. "Thank you," he says again, and Jon hugs him tight.

On the trip home their car on the tube is nearly empty, and nobody is looking at them, and it's been years and years and years but Martin's heart still hammers in his chest as he brushes the back of Jon's hand with his own.

Jon looks at him, confused, and Martin moves his hand away like a skittish animal caught in the beam of a flashlight. There is no sound but the background noise of the train cars rumbling along the tracks. Slowly, Jon reaches over and takes Martin's hand, palms gently ghosting against each other, fingers barely interlaced. He's still giving him an out.

Martin doesn't pull back. He tightens his hand, biting his lip nervously. When he looks over, there's a hint of a smile on Jon's face. Martin smiles too.

—

It's strange, learning to be loved unconditionally. Learning to be loved at all. Learning _how_ to be loved—how to open yourself, unfold all the creased edges of your soul until you are flat again, laid bare, and hope that the one who loves you irons you out so you stay that way.

"I just hope I'm never a disappointment to you," Martin says one night, as they sit by the window among the boxes of their new apartment. The rain makes patterns on the glass.

Jon reaches over to place a hand on his wrist, and Martin feels his own pulse fluttering where he's rested his thumb. "You could never be."

—

> 15/07/2004
> 
> I went for a walk when I got out today, and I saw everyone coming home, pulling into their driveways. Turning on their TVs and cooking dinner. I watched all the outdoor lights turn on. Everything felt so fragile, like I was looking at a little diorama made of paper maché, and if I even breathed it would all fall apart. I managed to get back to the house before most of the bugs came out, luckily, so I didn't get bitten. I could see them swarming the fluorescents in the garage.
> 
> I want to get married one day. I know everyone always says you have to love yourself first, or you're "your own person" or whatever but I really really want someone who I know will always be there <strike>or whatever</strike> I have to stop repeating phrases when I write haha. I should also stop writing in pen.
> 
> And I know not all marriages last <strike>or whatever</strike> but I think mine will? Not because I'm special or anything I just think i'll (do you capitalize the I in i'll? I'll?) really like him and try really hard to make it work. I hope he really likes me too and we don't get divorced or something. I mean I wouldn't even be able to marry him anyway I guess. It would be a legal partnership <strike>or wh</strike> I think it's called. I'd still call him my husband, I think. I like the sound of it. It makes me feel safe.
> 
> I keep thinking about what Emily said earlier, about getting a crush on someone when you least expect it, or someone coming into your life when you least expect it. I guess it's dumb to assume I'll meet my soulmate at 17 but it's been on my mind. I wonder where he is.
> 
> I want someone to go home to. I don't think I've ever been home in my entire life. I have a house but I'm outside, always, even in my own bed. I've just been out in the rain and snow and burning heat with nothing to duck under. I want to go home.

—

Martin wakes up with that familiar still-sick feeling, which is unsurprising. He'd taken medicine before bed but knows the sneezing will be back by lunchtime. What is surprising, however, is that he wakes up in bed. He'd insisted on taking the couch last night, not wanting Jon to get sick from sleeping next to him—never mind that he had already been hovering around Martin as soon as he had started to cough two days ago.

"Jon." He scolds, and he sees the other man's eyes blink open, a sheepish expression on his face. "You are going to get sick, and complain about having a sore throat for days on end, and act like it wasn't entirely preventable."

"I couldn't just leave you there," Jon says, like Martin was stranded inside a burning building instead of sleeping one room away so his husband didn't catch a cold from him. "I was trying to fall asleep and your cough sounded really bad, so I went out and got you some water and I wasn't just going to dump you back on the couch so I brought you in here. It's better you slept in here, you said last night there was no way to stay comfortably propped up on the couch, and—"

Martin groaned. "That wasn't me, I was under the influence—Nyquil—" he breaks off into a coughing fit, and Jon rubs his back while laughing softly. As soon as his lungs are done attacking him, he lays his head on Jon's shoulder. "Fine. You win this round."

They stay like that for a minute, listening to the muffled sound of London mornings outside.

"I don't think I've ever—" He falls silent, thinking about the best way to say this.

“You don’t think you’ve ever what?”

Martin shakes his head. “It’s—it’s kind of dumb, but, I just...I’ve never thanked you? For—for loving me, like this.” He swallows as Jon seems to turn the words over in his head. “S—sorry, that doesn’t make a ton of sense—“

“You don't need to thank me for loving you, Martin. And I know what you mean,” Jon’s eyes are soft. “Lots of ways to love someone.” His hand comes up to smooth one of Martin’s cowlicks, moves downwards to fiddle with the seam on the shoulder of the old t-shirt he wore to sleep. “You love me just the right way. It’s good to know the feeling is mutual.”

“Too many big words for eight in the morning, Mister Sims.”

“Blackwood-Sims.” Martin’s heart still squeezes a bit whenever Jon says that. It's only been a few months, now, but he knows that feeling will never stop. “Blackwood _dash_ Sims. You have to say dash out loud." He jokes. "And "mutual" isn't a big word.”

“Three syllables,” Martin mutters nonsensically, and Jon rolls his eyes fondly.

They're silent for a few seconds, and Martin feels it growing in his chest, the familiar warmth. "I love you," he says, his voice broken up by his sore throat and stuffy nose, and then he jams his face into the crook of Jon's neck, too overcome with emotion in his half-asleep state.

Jon laughs and reaches up to cup his cheek. "Sweetheart," his thumb brushing gently against the soft skin under his eye, "I love you, too."

Martin sniffles, and then pulls away to sneeze. "Ugh. Hang on, I need tea. My throat's killing me." He moves to get out of bed and is stopped by a hand on his shoulder pushing him back into the mattress.

“You look cozy,” Jon explains with a kiss to his temple, extracting himself from the comforter. “I’ll be right back.”

Martin leans back on the pillow, and when Jon returns he’s carrying a mug and a box of tissues and an expression of victory on his face, and Martin rolls his eyes and mutters something like _I'll be doing this for you__ in a week_ but he takes his tea and it’s perfect, of course. Jon smiles. “Just taking care of you.”

Martin feels it, suddenly, settling in his chest. He hasn't thought about it in years, but he can still recall all the journals, remembers all of himself. Turning a key, twisting a handle, stepping over the threshold. He closes his eyes.

He is home.

**Author's Note:**

> second chorus of mitski's "nobody" playing as i pull up on rusty quill hq and physically throw down with jonny and alex for hurting martin, who i project onto and desperately want to be happy so i can inherit a bizarre facsimile of that happiness for myself
> 
> ok i couldn't decide what to put for The Beginning Notes Song (trademark holly tomatoes 2016-) and then i made a whole playlist and [here it is](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6kikhHJ89Z4xtUKnigcBWW?si=36qwnwAOTxKHRtlDnuMpkA)
> 
> alright last thing: listen, i'm gonna be straight up with all of you, i am american and not educated whatsoever about UK culture all i know is y'all call cookies "biscuits" and the subway "the tube" and your drinking age is 18+ and i'm "jealous" and from there i'm swinging blindly so please have mercy. if the party in particular seems very american it's because i pulled from my own got damb experience and that's also why this version of kings has jack=truth or dare. also was anyone gonna tell me that me and my friends are apparently the only people on earth who use that rule? and usually jack is never have i ever?? ok i'm gonna stop rambling now hope u enjoyed GOODBYE
> 
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